July 26, 2014

What If Kids Ran The World?

"...parents have spawned a generation of brats ill-prepared for the demands of adulthood -- and infantilized themselves in the process."

So what country would you suppose that refers to? The U.S., of course. Right?

Well no, actually - and very surprisingly, to me - it's actually a reference to Sweden! As William Brennan of The Atlantic reported recently, a Stockholm psychiatrist, David Eberhard, has written a book chastising Swedish parents for indulging their offspring and letting the kids make the decisions.

Maybe this is another case of the Swedes (and those other pesky Nordics, like the Finns and the Danes) always being a step ahead of us. Eberhard has noted a problem and begun to make people in his country aware of it. American society, as far as I can determine, lags behind in picking up on this trend, which in my observation, is already widespread -probably, I suspect, far more so than in Sweden. Can it be any surprise that the younger generations now are so very self-centered, when they've never experienced the least twinge of disappointment nor gotten "no" for an answer?

Fortunately, the Swede is coming to rescue us. He's working to get his book published in the U.S. It ought to be a runaway best seller, but I'm guessing it won't be.